Soundwave is a Mutant from the Beast Wars portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

He's a wild sheila!

None of the Mutants are upbeat characters, but Soundwave really exemplifies their grim attitude toward life. While Razor Claw stoically shoulders his burden and Poison Bite internalizes all of his angst, Soundwave hates his ungainly body, and he wants everyone to know it. Bitter and melodramatic, Soundwave turns his hurt on the rest of the world - after all, it's not like he wanted to be part of this war in the first place. Soundwave only joined up with Icebird's band of misfits to find the 'bot who did this to him... and make them pay for this grotesque transformation. His drive for vengeance, while certainly dramatic, sometimes leads him to make irrational decisions.

The other Mutants tolerate his theatrics, as he's a useful asset to keep around (and it's not like they're particularly jovial folks, either) Whether in the air or in the water, he can rely on his ultra-sensitive internal radar to detect enemies, and his alligator teeth can chomp right through even the toughest Cybertronian alloys. One smack of his tail will send a circuit-disrupting pulse wave through the ground to short out whatever survives. Even so, once the threat has passed, Soundwave will probably go right back to brooding.

Fiction

3H comics

If only they DID have hands, my woman. If only... they DID have hands.

Soundwave and the other three Mutants were discarded offspring of Megatron's experiments. Despite their "tortured existence", they were given a mission from the Oracle itself: Travel to the Outer Orion Cluster, where they would find a way to restore their true forms and heal their fractured sparks. Departure

Arriving at their destination, Soundwave was increasingly cynical about the nature of their mission. His pessimism seemed justified, as he and the other Mutants were herded into a Quintesson courtroom and sentenced to death, despite their pleas. Though it appeared that all four were devoured by Sharkticons, Betrayal only Soundwave and Razor Claw met their gruesome end. Poison Bite and Icebird survived, revealing the Mutants' role as avatars of Primus as the remaining two extinguished the lives of their would-be executioners. Wreckers: Finale Part II

2006 IDW Beast Wars continuity

"Oh man, this'll totally get me that part in the new Lake Placid!!"

Once a warrior prior to the Pax Cybertronia, Soundwave attempted to find a new calling in entertainment. Seeking new audiences on other worlds for his acting performances, he enlisted as a crew member of the Axalon. Beast Wars Sourcebook #4

Soundwave was one of the many protoforms from the remaining Axalon stasis pods to be reactivated by Razorbeast. He and his fellow Mutants took up residence in a swamp. When a Predacon scouting party intruded on their home, the Mutants defended their home vigorously—in the course of the slaughter, Soundwave bit Powerpinch's leg off. The Gathering #3

Kre-O online manga

"I survived 3H Productions!"

Soundwave was present with the other Soundwaves clones in an attempt to hypnotize the Autobot Kreons into slaves. Soundwave's Trap? Stop Operation Brainwash Humanity!

Recordicons

Soundwave announced "Soundwave eject" before vomiting, causing the nearby Lazorbeak to express the hope that he wasn't the original Soundwave. Recordicons #26

Precursor World

"My big break! I got a line and everything."

A Transformer resembling Soundwave was a lieutenant of Primus in the Golden Age. Like his fellows, he dutifully assisted Primus in his efforts to confiscate the Seven Lights from his dissenting army, the Primus Vanguard, and restart the universe.

Soundwave was present in the strike team Primus brought to bear against the Powered Masters in an expedition to the year 2050 of the next universe to capture its newly formed, empty Silver Matrix for his patsy, Optimus Prime. Abominus comic 2 When Star Convoy (Optimus Prime's more powerful form) grew wise to Primus's plan, Soundwave oversaw the Golden Age in restraining him as their master personally gathered the last two Star Powers from Megatron Omega and Purple Wicked Convoy. Finale Prelude

Primus's plan went real sideways after that, with Primus being reduced to his diminutive core form, the Oracle, by the onslaught of the behemoth Neo Primus (no relation) and the Seven Lights being captured by malevolent future warrior Gold Megatron and used to create his own seven-part force, the New Primus Vanguard. Realizing the dire nature of the threat, Oracle reversed his orders, and Soundwave motioned for the Golden Age to free Star Convoy and pool their Golden Power into him. Star Convoy arose as Gold Primus Convoy and set out to battle his nemesis.

At some point after Gold Megatron and Neo Primus were defeated, the Oracle was captured by the twin Straxuses, destroyers of the Blue Order. Soundwave looked on in horror as the Straxuses vowed to exploit the power vacuum left by the Primus Vanguard's dissolution. In response, Soundwave quietly made his own proclamation: The Primus Vanguard would return! Finale

Soundwave facilitated the escape of the diminutive clones Megalligator and Convobat from the Straxuses' Darkmount, taking care to separate the two by knocking out Convobat. Convobat prequel He then guided the lone Blue Order survivor Magna Convoy from the Ivory Towers to Darkmount, aiding in his quest to retake the Matrix Sword. Magna Convoy prequel After Magna Convoy and Convobat prevailed against the Straxuses and reconsecrated the Blue Order, Soundwave and a mysterious ally observed them and a motley assortment of Vanguard survivors and potential recruits throughout the multiverse. Cybertron Magna Convoy

Some way or another, Soundwave and company managed to repeat that trick six more times and the Primus Vanguard was reborn! Finale

2005 IDW continuity

"Wait, I'm not supposed to be here! I was supposed to be an Animorphs toy, I swear to-"

Soundwave was one of Onyx Prime's Maximals. When this bestial horde invaded Cybertron, he was one of the many warriors who wound up battling Arcee, and Jetfire and Aileron came across his severed wing shortly afterwards. Endless Forever

Another Maximal of Soundwave's body-type^[1] was among the Maximals who invaded Toronto in advance of Unicron's arrival, and was subsequently shot down by a G.I. Joe Sky Hawk during the battle for the city. Ceremony

Toys

Mutant Beast Wars

Doomed to be eaten by Sharkticons or doomed to crumble to golden dust. The deck was stacked against him since Day One.

• Soundwave (Deluxe, 2000)

• Known designers: Takio Ejima (TakaraTomy), Tim Bradley and Masakatsu Saito (concept art)

Part of the fourth and final wave of the fifth-and-final year of Beast Wars Deluxes, Soundwave transforms between two organic animal forms: a bat and an alligator. The bat mode chest can be lowered to reveal mechanical parts. His robot face can be revealed within the bat's mouth by pressing a spring-loaded spine on the back of the bat head.

He is a notable sufferer of GPS, usually manifesting in the bat chest door breaking off at the hinge, the gator head snapping off, or the wings breaking at any of their joints or pegs.

This mold was to be used to make Leatherhide, but that toy was ultimately canceled.

• More information on Soundwave at TFU.info

Notes

• The four Mutants were originally developed as toys for the Animorphs line. But with that line's cancellation, the molds were retooled to replace the human parts with robotic bits, as well as change the Animorphs logo to the new "Mutant" insignia. Design sketches from Transformers Generations 2017 indicate that Soundwave was to be one of the male characters on the team; judging by his head design, he would have been Marco.
• Early pictures of Soundwave showed him with green plastic rather than brown, presumably on the whole "alligator=green" thing... leading to not only a damn strange-looking bat mode, but some color redundancy with Razor Claw. Although this redundancy may have been preferable to the inevitable Gold Plastic Syndrome instead.
• For the longest time, there was a fandom misunderstanding about the profile for Soundwave printed in IDW Publishing's Beast Wars Sourcebook, in which fans mistakenly thought the profile implied this Soundwave to be the same person as his Generation 1 namesake. This stemmed from the profile mentioning that he fought in a war that immediately preceded the Pax Cybertronia, which fans thought was in reference to the Great War between the Autobots and Decepticons. In actuality, the war in question was instead the other "Great War" fought later by the Maximals and Predacons, which was specified elsewhere in the Sourcebook to have been the war that the Pax Cybertronia formally ended.
• Kreon Soundwave is made from several existing Kre-O pieces, in this case he uses the Rampage animal head (with small wing pieces to simulate bat ears), two spike pieces for 'claws', and Grimwing's wings (although the wings are directly on the arm-joint sections instead of using a back-pack piece). The tail is unique, though.
• In the e-HOBBY comics, Soundwave's body is modeled on the Titans Return Deluxe Class Mindwipe body and the Nightbeat head.

Foreign names

• French: Sonar (Canada)
• Spanish: Sonar (Latin America)

References